


Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

by IronTeeth



Category: Five Horsemen - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Domestic Horsemen, Feels, Multi, Partial Blindness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronTeeth/pseuds/IronTeeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes things don't go so well. But that's what teams are for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

**Author's Note:**

> Cal's right eye has been missing for a while now, but he has Charles Bonnet Syndrome and sometimes gets visual hallucinations in it. Also sometimes it's just shit.

Callum doesn't really have many bad days with his missing eye any more. Sure, it's not _easy_ , but it's a far, far cry from the early days. He's learning to do without depth perception - moving his head helps - and the loss of half his field of vision to a black cavern that sometimes ignites into a fiery hellhole is...becoming less disconcerting. He actually has a lot of good days, days when he doesn't put a foot wrong, days when he doesn't feel guilty, days when he believes he's whole.

This all makes the few bad days he does have _absolutely awful_.

Cal crashes to the ground, momentum sending him rolling and skidding across the rough tarmac. The impact knocks the breath from him, but he manages the presence of mind to go with the motion as much as possible to limit the damage; still, his right shoulder takes the brunt of the fall and stops being of much use.

For a second, everything is almost silent, except for the ringing in his ears - silent, that is, in comparison to a moment ago, which had been a wind-whipped turmoil of sirens, shouting, panting breath and drumming hooves. The second stretches; he must get to his feet, get away, somehow. But what of Spitfire...?

And then the drumming hooves are back. Spitfire has spun on the raised bypass with agility that the police cars cannot hope to match, and is galloping back towards him, a blinding white comet in the night. Somehow, Cal wrenches himself to his feet in time to catch hold of the saddle and swing up, clinging on with sheer determination until he can find his stirrups and ride.

There - a pedestrian stairway that they hadn't seen coming the other way. Spitfire leaps straight off the bypass and onto the stairs, hiding his potions as soon as they're out of sight. The flaming mane disappears, becomes black, peafowled strands; the white glow fades to blend with the darkness. Then with another leap they're at ground level, streaking away.

The lair is a little way away, and Cal has time to breathe and think now. _Can't stop feeling responsible, can you?_ They'd been virtually surrounded, grouped vulnerably at the end of the race with the prizes just handed out, and when the first howl of the sirens started up a lot of the entrants' horses had startled or bolted - and then chaos reigned, horses fleeing in every direction, squad cars mobilising to give chase, no direction to anything. But the police had got closer than they should have - he was going to have to get new stewards - and it looked dire. So without hesitation Cal had had Spitfire rear up to his full, huge height, a beacon of moonlight and fire in the middle of pandemonium. And as intended, the police hadn't been able to resist. He'd led them on a merry chase away from the competitors, down alleys and sideroads, but then the bypass had opened up before them and he'd taken the chance to put some distance between the police and the race location. But he hadn't had enough of a lead to start with, and eventually the two cars left pursuing caught up. The squad car on his left had drawn alongside, the officer nearest him bellowing at him to pull over, and maybe he had been distracted by that but the next thing he knew was that he was falling, a glimpse of the officer to his right leant out of his window to grab at him.

And that was that.

But he hadn't been distracted, he knows. Not that much. He just _hadn't seen the car on his right at all_. The officer wouldn't have been able to lean that far out of his window safely with any kind of speed, and Cal had just...let him do it. He'd had no idea. Oh, he'd got away, thanks to Spitfire, and he's fairly sure nothing is broken - he moves his shoulder to check, and winces, but it's probably just a sprain and an almighty bruise - but it could have all been over.

And if he can't do this reliably, how will he ever be fit enough to return to the Wandering Army?

And if he can't do that, who and what the hell is he?

He gets back to the lair while the others are still out and goes straight to bed, aching, tired and fed up, and heedless of the drying blood on his face. He hears Zack come in later in the dark but pretends to be asleep, lying still on the wrong side of the bed.

He's awoken the next morning by Zack's yell.

"Oh my _god_ , Cal, what the hell happened? Why didn't you text?"

He squints irritably as the morning light lances into his eye like a hot poker. Zack is next to him, staring in alarmed concern at his face, reaching out as if to touch him. He recoils from the gesture, and wordlessly pads to the bathroom, standing before the mirror.

It's not _that_ bad. There are grazes on his right jaw, cheek and temple, as well as on his nose and ear, but his goggles have protected around the right eyesocket - not, he notes grimly, that it matters much. But there's still dirt and grit in the cuts and, though his clothing had protected the rest of his body from lacerations, his right shoulder is a bruised mess of red and purple already. A shower sorts out the worst of the dirt, sweat and blood, and has the added bonus of making him look less like a ragged ghoul. The more deeply-embedded grit he removes with tweezers, cotton wool and antiseptic, biting his lower lip against the pain. Zack tries knocking on the door a few thousand times, trying to coax him out to ask what happened and if he's okay, but eventually gives up after he gets no answer - though Cal can hear him pacing anxiously around in between dressing and getting breakfast. He manages to get most of the grit out and is starting to feel a little less angry - all until he tilts his head to see the deep cut at the corner of his jaw better, and just as it would have come into view, it goes out of view instead.

Zack manages to avoid being run over as Cal storms out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, hair sticking up and waterproof dressing over his missing eye, and trots after him as he makes his way to the kitchen and plops down into a chair, then stands, then sits, then stands and turns around, and sits again.

"Can someone-" he growls, gesturing sharply to the cut on his jaw and unable to form proper sentences past the lump of anger and embarrassment in his throat, "-please - I can't-" And it's Zack who pulls up a chair in front of him and takes the tweezers and cotton wool and antiseptic out of his hands, so he could have stayed in the bathroom after all - but Echo and Kadira are standing up from breakfast and coming over now, and they've seen, and any pretence is gone. "I can't see it," he finishes miserably, slumping in his chair.

Zack cleans him up gently and thoroughly while Cal tells them what happened, Kadira leaning forward with her elbows on the table as she listens and makes disparaging comments about "pigs", and Echo makes him a cup of hot, strong tea for when Zack's done. It turns out that there were cuts on his right ear that he'd not noticed, which Zack cleans up as well, and with breakfast in front of him courtesy also of Echo, Cal starts to relax for the first time since the sirens started.

It goes back downhill from there.

He finally surveys the damage to his kit from last night, retrieving it all from where he'd simply dropped it to the floor before getting into bed. The shoulder of his jacket is torn to hell as expected, and he's thankful it wasn't his actual shoulder, but he'll still have to repair or replace it. His trousers are scuffed but still usable, and his boots need a fresh coat of polish, but the goggles are the biggest shock. The left lens is all as normal, but the right is shattered, crazed and totally useless. And he'd had no idea. He drops them in the kitchen bin, the one that goes straight to landfill.

The rest of the day is a medley of trips, missed grabs and walking into things. He knows the signs of a bad day, so he avoids doing anything exciting, but his heart can't help but sink when he goes to lift his glass of water and knocks it over instead, smashing it on the floor and spilling water everywhere, and he can't help but think of it as deserved when he nicks his fingers on the glass when he tries to clear it up. The others try to sympathise, but he gets snappier and snappier and he knows it, and he can't help himself though even Zack is now avoiding asking him anything and Kadira has snapped back several times.

When Echo's voice sounds next to his right ear out of nowhere, asking if he's okay, he nearly jumps out of his skin - then he loses it.

He's been yelling for longer than he's sure of about not fucking sneaking up on him when he pauses to take a breath and sees all their faces.

"...Fuck," he mutters, and scrubs one hand over his face. It stings. Good. "Sorry, I'm a dick. I- Sorry." Then he all but flees to his study. Can't fucking hurt paperwork.

The rest of the day passes, and most of the night, and Cal's just packing up to go to bed when the others sidle in. He sighs.

"Look guys, I'm so sorry. I was way out of order, Echo, and-"

"Hey," Kadira interrupts. "It's okay. Seriously. I mean yeah, you were a dick, but..."

"-But we get why," Zack finishes with a smile.

Cal looks up at the three of them, completely in earnest, and a tentative smile smooths out some of the lines on his brow. "Still," he says, and shakes his head. "Usually I cope. I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kadira says gruffly. "Don't think we didn't see you tear up watching _Up_ the other week. That was way worse. I think we can handle you." She steps forward, and he only notices now that her hands have been behind her back. "Uh, here," she says, putting something dark on his desk.

It's his goggles, only complete, with both lenses shiny and dark. He might have thought them new if there wasn't a series of gouges and scrapes on the right frame, and if they didn't smell slightly of bin. He smiles up at them.

"Thanks, guys-" he starts, but Kadira waves him into silence.

"Put them on, idiot," she says without rancour.

So he does.

And oh, how he smiles. There's now a tiny HUD visible in the right corner of the left lens, just one video feed, and he knows exactly what it is. He raises his right hand off to the side, experimentally, waves it, and the pain in his shoulder is nothing because _he can fucking see it_. Not literally, of course, but just there, in that video feed, as if it were the view out of the right lens of the goggles. He laughs in sheer glee, not caring that he probably looks like a dumbass waving at himself.

"Echo fished them out and came up with the concept," Kadira is saying as the Greek woman smiles at him. "Zack had the materials. I hooked up the HUD and the camera - it's behind the right lens, small as we could go, I mean it's not flush, and it won't help with depth perception, but it shouldn't-"

"It's _perfect_ ," Cal says, beaming, and only convinces himself to take them off because he has to wipe his goddamn eye. "It's wonderful. You're - all of you - are wonderful."

Maybe he doesn't have to be whole, he thinks as he embraces them, and it turns into an awkward, messy group hug and they're giggling and someone's elbow is in his ribs. Zack kisses him, then so does Kadira. Maybe he's enough. He is for them.


End file.
